Nicole didn't set out to become a metalworker. Her workshop, the one she calls Peppers Shed, started out the way a lot of maker journeys do: wood, a diode laser, and a lot of trial and error.

"I originally came from mostly working with diode lasers and materials like wood," she says. That was her comfort zone. It's also exactly where the em-smart Dual SE quietly changed things for her.

Figure 1: From wood to metal, two very different materials under one laser.

A Machine That Doesn't Make You Choose

What drew Nicole to the Dual SE wasn't just one standout feature, it was the fact that she didn't have to pick a lane anymore. The machine combines a fiber laser and a diode laser in one enclosure, and for a creator who likes to follow an idea wherever it leads, that turned out to matter more than she expected.

"I can have an idea involving wood one day and experiment with brass, stainless steel, or another metal the next, without needing two separate machines," she explains.

Since then, she has lost count of how many things she has made with it, somewhere past 30 projects between real work and pure "let's see if this works" experiments. Fine engravings on personalized tools. Deeper work in brass. Metal, something she had never seriously touched before, became a regular part of her process.

"It's become the machine that gives me new project ideas, not just helps me finish the ones I already have."

We love hearing this from our creators, because that is really what we hope our machines can do: not just complete a task, but open up a new way of thinking about what's possible.  

Learning the Rotary Attachment Together

Not every part of the journey was smooth, and Nicole is honest about that too. When she first set up the rotary attachment, she wasn't fully confident she had installed it correctly, so she reached out to our team. We walked her through the full setup that same day. 

Then came a trickier problem. While engraving a tumbler, she noticed the text kept coming out slightly warped near the middle of the piece. She sent over a video, and within about half a day, our engineers had traced the issue back to the rotary motor settings.

It's a small story, but it says a lot about what we want this partnership to feel like. Something didn't go right at first, and instead of Nicole quietly giving up on the accessory, there was a team on the other end that took her report seriously and moved fast to fix it.

Figure 3: Nicole's rotary attachment

Her experience genuinely helped us see where new users might run into friction. It fed directly into a revised version of our manual and a new set of troubleshooting resources, so the next creator picking up a Dual SE won't have to hit the same wall she did. If you run into something similar, the step-by-step notes on adjusting the rotary motor mode, built directly from the fixes Nicole helped us work through, are kept in the troubleshooting section of our Discord community. Feel free to join us there.

Customer or partner, it makes no difference to us. We know there is still plenty we can improve, and we are working hard to get better every day, one piece of honest feedback like Nicole's at a time.

What Stuck With Her

Ask Nicole what she would tell someone considering the Dual SE, and it isn't a spec sheet answer.

"I came from diode lasers and wood, so switching to fiber and metal with the Dual SE took a little getting used to. But now I can work on a wood project one day and switch to brass or stainless steel the next, without needing two machines."

That's the throughline of her year with the machine. Not one dramatic transformation, but a steady widening of what she thought was possible in her own workshop, one tumbler, one brass engraving, one "let's see if this works" experiment at a time.

We are grateful to have partners like Nicole who push our machines, tell us honestly when something isn't working, and keep creating alongside us.

Inspired to start your own laser engraving journey, whether for fun or as a small side business? [Here's how to pick the right machine for you.]

Let's keep growing together.

Curious to try the em-smart Dual SE yourself? Use code PEPPER at checkout for an extra $200 off, bringing the price down to just $1,799. [Shop the Dual SE →]